


Watching Over You

by Jemppu



Series: Honey Mushroom [47]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Art, Culmets - Freeform, Fanart, M/M, Tumblr, honey mushroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemppu/pseuds/Jemppu
Summary: Part of"Honey Mushroom"series of illustrated Culmets momentslisted here on tumblr.Paul embarking on Discovery’s second mission.With illustration:"Another Journey Begins".
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Series: Honey Mushroom [47]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1080993
Kudos: 11





	Watching Over You

**Author's Note:**

> The series gets released quite out of order, as inspiration dictates, so I urge you to check out the [series list on tumblr](https://tinyurl.com/honeyshroom) for a better picture of the whole.

## 

## Watching Over You 

After couple of weeks of maintenance, it is finally the day of Discovery’s embarkment for it’s second ever mission.

Paul is somewhat out of sorts this morning. Quite expectedly so, given the decisions he’s had to make to be here still. How is he in Starfleet’s employment anymore? How is he voluntarily about to go along, jump aboard another galaxy spanning journey?  
  
But what else is he going to do? He’s been through this thought-play back and worth in his head numerous times by now.

Him, not-an-officer, who never wished to be associated with the Fleet anyway. Why again?  
  
Fuck, he’d wish these thoughts left him alone.  
  
He’s convinced himself of a decision even, but it just won’t stop pestering him - the doubt. And likely won’t for a good while.  
  
Stepping back into that ship. First time since…  
  
Alone. But he’ll be alone anywhere he goes now anyway, won’t he? And it is something he’d actually like right now, to be left behind, and alone.  
  
However, there’s this voice in his head, whom he has to keep assuring. It wants Paul to move on. Not to stay put in this agony of hanging on to a memory.  
  
Paul promised it he’d do this, so he wouldn’t be left to pine over all that was lost. As much as part of him would like nothing more than to wallow in it. As much as it goes against his nature to force himself into that crowded ship, among all the people. With nowhere to run away from them.  
  
There’s something on that ship Paul needs still. Past life. A presence. More than a memory.  
  
He can feel as if a worried gaze on himself. It’s suddenly dubious of Paul’s intentions, he senses. As it perhaps should.  
  
“I told you why: to bring you home, Starfleet”, Paul reminds his overseer, “it’s not like I’d be hanging with the Fleet for myself”.  
  
He knows it will be fucking difficult from here on out. To keep together.  
  
_“Dear, I’m home”_. He can just imagine himself standing there at the door of their cabin, staring into the empty, cold room that used to be. All the pleasant memories now tainted. How exactly will this be helping him to get over?  
  
“But please, do remind me again”, Paul whispers to himself, and hears a heavy, sympathetic sigh in reply, as if preparing itself for telling him of all the ways he’s doing the right thing to move on, and how it’s proud of him for not giving up, and how it supports him, and all that fucking sentimental nonsense, it’s had to tell him already, over and over. And which yet Paul needs to hear. To keep faith. To not forget.  
  
Even, if it will just be lies he keeps repeating to himself. Using that voice to fool himself. Justifying his every move towards something he knows he shouldn’t dream of. Not, if he wants to get over.  
  
Should it be worrying too, how at ease he feels deceiving the voice, feeling only slightly guilty for it? But he has started to realize, what was true all along: that this is not the man. This is but Paul’s own idea of him. His own mind, his voice, pretending he is not alone. It’s lying to him, so why should he feel bad for lying back to it - to himself.  
  
There’s no-one but himself here. He can’t keep pretending, that the man would really be with him anymore. That he has been at all. Not on this plane of existence anyway. But the slightest chance for the man out there…  
  
While lost in this inner turmoil, Paul is hardly aware of the physical world around him. Perhaps even less so, than he usually tends to be.  
  
Rapidly pacing through a hall of a crowded starship terminal, he has no chance to notice the pair of junior officers and their luggage currently parked on his path. He walks straight onto them, almost tripping over the other officer’s legs spread out on the floor.  
  
“Wha…!?! - What the **fuck** is this!?” Paul exclaims far more fiercely, than he ever should in the uniform, as the startled junior officers scramble to stand up.  
  
Few nearby heads turn their way and the surrounding chatter pauses. In the short instant of stunned silence someone can be heard dropping their PADD on the floor, and the low rumbling creaks from ship docking outside the terminal windows become clearer, before the flow of the scene resumes gradually and the social hum fills the air again.  
  
Paul shakes himself to the moment. Why the fuck are there kids strewn across the terminal floor?  
  
“Do you boys not have **any** better place to camp?” Paul huffs exasperated, while trying to compose himself from the surprise of the impact.  
  
_“Paul, behave yourself”_ , the voice in his head he was just conducting a conversation with scolds him.  
  
“Sorry”, Paul’s frustrated reply comes out loud, quite forced through an annoyed frown, but relenting to the familiar tone.  
  
“No, it’s fine, Sir”, lankier of the juniors assures - the one not their fucking legs across the aisle. “ **We** are sorry, Sir. We realize this might not be the best spot to have settled ourselves”.  
  
Paul stares at the two with a viciously disapproving face. Never mind the _“no shit”_ , that apology was in **no way** directed at them. The gall of them to assume he would…  
  
_“Let it go, Paul”_ , the voice calmly instructs before Paul has a chance to express his objection.  
  
“Fine”, Paul replies reluctantly to the voice, sharply and out loud however, this time intentionally letting it serve as a stern comeback for the kids as well. His face shows nothing but distaste.  
  
“Thank you, Sir”, the lanky officer salutes him. Paul can see through that ass-kissing demeanor easily, and actually finds such underlying presence of a mind quite endearing. Sassy.  
  
“Lieutenant Stamets”, the second one joins the salute, much more earnestly, and is quickly nudged by the other. “Uh, Lieutenant Commander, Sir”, they correct themselves flustered. This one is part of Paul’s own Engineering team, Paul now acknowledges.  
  
The name escapes him, as usual, but they’re a frequent Delta-shifter - thus often unwelcome company to Paul’s attempted seclusion in the night time Engine room, unfortunately.  
  
And a looker, certainly, in that effortlessly superficial way youth can be, Paul adds to his mental assessment.  
  
Paul had often felt like giving them a leave, if he only had the authority to completely dismiss the department without risking reprimand from the higher-ups. And if the reaction core didn’t indeed require someone capable on stand-by at all times.  
  
There could be far worse ones to be stuck with in the dead of night however. At least the kid is quiet.  
  
“At ease”, Paul finally shrugs after a tense moment of measuring the men, and waves the kowtowing away with surprising casualness.  
  
What mere weeks ago still used to be such foreign, uncomfortable gestures for him to receive, now feel like nothing out of ordinary - having to have to give his approval for people looking for admission to address him and needing to dismiss them afterwards.  
  
In fact, it almost feels homely to come back to this ridiculous routine, he is surprised to realize just now. The most familiar anything he has left.  
  
“Hah”, Paul huffs to himself in disbelief for the absurd thought. Just like that he’s become so comfortable - expectant even - of such pageantry? Him, the “reluctant enlistee”, now a war widow and wary he might be on his way to becoming something of a Starfleet veteran, if he’ll keep this willingly tagging along.  
  
But it’s only because he has this memory of his Love here watching over him, right? Providing some moral guidance. Paul is stuck to that mode of _“what would he want me to do”_. Otherwise this too could’ve turned into a much bigger scene with possibly regrettable consequences, he fears.  
  
If he moved on, where would he be with his sorry self?  
  
The one looking over him feels disagreeing.  
  
Paul turns to look back at the two young engineers as they scatter to gather their bags and move aside.  
  
These kids too went through the same journey however, and are now back for ‘another day at the office’.  
  
Unexpectedly, Paul finds himself suppressing an uncharacteristic urge to strike up a conversation: ask them why young men such as themselves seek Starfleet’s employment?  
  
But the feeling is fleeting. _Being on the front lines of human exploration of the universe. Engaging with new alien civilizations. Actively working towards wider united galaxy._ Some such pretentious crap, right?  
  
All of them textbook answers Paul had previously heard - and has no trouble believing - were something they drove into you at the Academy. No matter what one’s own motivations for joining might be. Even if your initial and underlying desire was to just fly a cool spaceship.  
  
Notions relayed to him by that one beloved foster child of the Fleet he had had the privilege and a blessing to get to know intimately.  
  
Hugh.  
  
Fuck. Paul has a sudden want to hold the doctor’s hand. Feel his touch, and see the man’s radiant smile. He’s had this urge hit him several times during the past couple of weeks, and knows better by now: the moment he tries to turn to look, to reach for the man next to him, he’ll chase away that feeling of the man by his side.  
  
If it’s that easy, why **doesn’t** he then? Just turn to confirm there’s no-one there the moment he senses the man next to him?  
  
Because as much as he tells the voice, the man - tells himself - that’s what he is here for, to come in terms and move on, he doesn’t want to.  
  
If there’s a slightest chance the man is out there, he can’t.  
  
“Mushroom?”, the voice questions him apprehensively. “You promised not to”, it reminds.  
  
“I know what I promised”, Paul replies in his mind, slightly fed up to this excessive overbearingness, “I promised not to leave you alone, ever”.  
  
“Not that”, the voice sighs for Paul intentionally misinterpreting it’s words, “I’d say that promise got revoked on a snap”. Harsh. “You promised you wouldn’t go jumping for me”.  
  
“I did, and I won't”, Paul assures.  
  
“I need not but to visit. Just to see you. Hold you for a while”, he explains to himself in his mind, "I can’t have you, the real you, think that I’d ever leave you behind… again”.  
  
“Honey”, the voice is worried, “it’s but ghosts you’d be chasing. What ever might be there isn’t any more real than the memory you have of me here”.  
  
Bullshit. Paul knows. It’s really Hugh there. All that is left of him scattered in the network. That’s the nature of it. Not just this biased reflection of Paul’s own mind - a memory, like he said just now. And it’s alone there. Paul swore to himself he’d never leave the man alone again.  
  
“Just for a while”. Then he’ll move on. “I can’t just leave you there”. Knowing how much the man dislikes being alone - how he needs the close company.  
  
“You didn’t, Mushroom. We said goodbye”, the voice sighs, “You know it wouldn’t be just once. You won’t ever get over like that”.  
  
No. But does he really need to?  
  
“…Stamets?”, the voice suddenly loses all it’s familiar, loving timbre.  
  
“Lieutenant Commander Stamets?”. Paul jolts back to the voice of the night shift Ensign.  
  
Fuck. How long has he been standing here, daydreaming?  
  
Paul gathers himself. “It’s fine”, he replies coldly to the junior officer, and takes a step back, away from a hand intrusively close to touching him on a shoulder.  
_“Fine”_? What’s fine? He’s fine? Clearly not.  
  
Touch, yes. The very special one. The only one he ever welcomed. He needs to reconnect with it.  
  
Fuck, he hopes the maintenance hasn’t been too thorough and messed up too much with things. Or any of the involved bureaucracies.  
  
That Delta-shift though. He would need to do something about that, he thinks, and feels exposed suddenly, as if those worriedly accusatory eyes were on him again.  
  
To **work** in peace - the way he likes to do -, Paul elaborates, trying to fool himself. The only damn way to try and hide himself from the Hugh of his mind.  
But the eyes remain on him still, unconvinced.  
  
Could this be made to be about something else? Anything to distract himself from these treacherous thoughts.  
  
_“What!?”_ Paul almost snaps out loud, throwing a fierce look at the junior officer still hovering about him. The kid backs off to join his fellow further aside to mind his own business.  
  
Paul takes a quick glance at himself and figures a fitting excuse for this current guilty feeling.  
  
Yes, look at this now: is it really so difficult for Mushroom to wear the uniform properly? He needs to act according to his status now, act as an example, and that includes respecting the uniform, he reminds himself, realizing his current choice of a chilly terminal armor of a woolly shirt under the uniform doesn’t really enforce this.  
  
Paul quickly zips up, to at least **appear** regulations complying - not the most comfortable solution however, stuffing a knit sweater under the tight jacket.

He’s missing a badge too. Can’t expect people to remember, if he doesn’t announce it with the standard display, that he’s now a step higher on their ridiculous ‘scale of self-importance’, Paul huffs to himself.  
  
The disapproving eyes keep on him, relentlessly. But for any number of reasons now, it feels. Which is better.  
  
This will all be fine, Paul attempts to cheer himself up. It will be much like years ago, before all of this. The tasks may be different from the ones he had as a self-employed researcher, the work might be for the Fleet now, and he won’t be able to follow his own schedule, but **otherwise** it’ll be like before, right? Just he and his job, alone. Right…  
  
So he lies to himself, ineffectively, and slinks lethargically off to go find some remote corner of the departures hall, where to turn on his stern Starfleet facade - if there even is such anymore - and mentally prepare for his shipping out duties as the head of a starship Engineering team with a mission ahead of them.

What ever mission there might be for himself? He has none to admit.  
  
_“Honey…?”_  
  
None. Shut up, Hugh. He’s here to move on. He’s here because he has nowhere else left to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts on the work posted along with the illustration on [**tumblr**](https://jmalkki.tumblr.com/post/182053743834/another-journey-begins-here-we-are-then-on-the).
> 
> _Likes, shares, comments and what have you, all appreciated on:_  
>  _[ **tumblr**](http://jmalkki.tumblr.com/) | [**twitter**](https://twitter.com/Jemppu) | [**instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/jeminamalkki/) | [**DeviantArt**](https://www.deviantart.com/jemppu)_


End file.
